


Misplaced Trust

by skidblast



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Genre: Gen, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4114261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skidblast/pseuds/skidblast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Strongarm realizes that she hasn't been put on patrol with Sideswipe for a while, she doesn't quite want to start enjoying the now tolerable patrols unless she knows why this is.</p><p>(Slight spoilers for "Some body, any body" episode, vague spoilers for "The trouble with Fixit")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misplaced Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Vent writing, written when sick and not even proofread aside from spellcheck.

It took Strongarm few weeks to realize it. And she felt humiliated that it were few weeks and not few days. She realized that in the last few joint patrols she had with others, it was Bumblebee whenever he felt he wanted to talk about Earth and its intricacies, Drift if Bumblebee felt that the too overly honorable mech was being too overbearing, or Grimlock if it was a foot patrol far away from any humans.

But it was never Sideswipe. When she realized she hadn't been subjected to the delinquent's probably inherited need for lawlessness for few weeks, she quickly ran through the patrol logs. Everyone had been paired up with each other, except her and Sideswipe. Sure she was relieved she didn't have to reign in the red speeder or having to argue with him every single minute of the patrol, she had enough of that in the scrapyard, it felt a bit odd that this was happening. Especially since Bumblebee had not mentioned this arrangement to her nor had Sideswipe ever mentioned it as well.

Strongarm waited until Sideswipe went on his next patrol but she and Bumblebee would be on the base. It happened when Sideswipe went on a general solo patrol, nothing happened on those.

"Lieutenant?" Strongarm approached Bumblebee who was with Fixit overseeing the orange minicon working on his Decepticon Hunter.

"What is it cadet?" Bumblebee asked. Good, calling her cadet meant that he was more interested in work talk rather than personal chat, which meant he would be more forthcoming with answers and give them clearly.

"I need a word with you about patrol assignments." Strongarm said. "But it might be better to have this conversation in private?" She asked as she eyed Fixit and the weapon he was working on.

"No problem." Bumblebee said. "Fixit?"

"Don't worry!" Fixit said with his regular enthusiastic tone and smiled, a smile a bit more disturbing after his "episode". "As long as Danny Clay doesn't try to use the clawjammer, stammer -" CLANK "HAMMER, then it will be okay." He smiled. Bumblebee returned the smile and walked away with Strongarm following, the two of them going to the less-well traveled corridors of the scrapyard.

"So Strongarm, do you feel you've gotten less or more patrols recently?" Bumblebee asked as he stopped, smiling like usually.

"Actually, the number has been steady for the last few weeks, the problem is more with whom you're partnering me with, or rather, whom you're not partnering me with."

"Sideswipe." Bumblebee nodded, clearly aware of what Strongarm was talking about. "I would have thought you would welcome taking a break from him."

"It isn't quite a break, is it?" Strongarm asked. "You never even told me you would stop sending us together on patrol. Were you ever intending to inform me of it?"

"I was Strongarm, the matter is that -" Bumblebee quickly adverted his eyes from her and looked down. He might have been in the war, he might have been working with Optimus Prime and learned from him, but Strongarm knew that Bumblebee wasn't quite confident in his own leadership skills, which were still superb and what was holding him back was his own lack of confidence.

"You never found the right time?" Strongarm suggested.

"And it isn't quite easy to explain." Bumblebee quickly added. "I was hoping that with no pressure on you two during patrols you you get along better than you have been so far."

"We do socialize, we have those movie nights with Russell and Danny. I can't say that we've gotten along any better than since we first arrived here." Strongarm answered, but then she saw Bumblebee looking up again at her, and he had that look of slight disappointment. And it looked like he was disappointed at _her_.

"What is it?" Strongarm asked. "Why would we need to get along better?"

"We're stuck on this planet, on a mission from Optimus Prime." Bumblebee said. "We're dealing with multiple Decepticons and have to capture them or at least prevent them from ravaging this planet. And in order to do that, we need to be a good team. And we are, if we look at the whole of it. But when it comes to you and Sideswipe, you might think this team was made out of strangers. I need to be sure that when it is just the two of you, Sideswipe can depend on you."

"Depend on me?" Strongarm quickly answered. "Be it far from me to presume but shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"I know what I said." Bumblebee said and Strongarm resented the sudden hardened Bumblebee, wanting the slightly insecure and not as confident Bumblebee back.

"Sideswipe is a punk, a ruffian!" Strongarm said. "He has done nothing but argue with me ever since we met, and he just runs off doing his own thing. He plays pranks, he treats everything like a game -"

"Not everything." Bumblebee quickly interjected. "He has shown he is serious, alert and focused when it comes to the job. The job of capturing the escaped Decepticons. Sure, he sometimes acts out during patrols when he thinks it is safe, but at any sign of danger he is completely focused. Not only on me, but all of us."

"And why do you think I don't have his back when we're working or on patrol?" Strongarm asked.

"Vertebreak." Bumblebee said, apparently ready to make that his complete answer.

"Where does he come into this?" Strongarm glanced back to where they kept the stasis pods. Fixit had managed to put Vertebreak's head back on his own body and now that mad scientist Decepticon was back in his stasis pod where he wouldn't redo his creepy surgery."

"When we were chasing his signal, Sideswipe got ambushed and overwhelmed. He is a good scout, but those things do happen." Bumblebee said, omitting that such things had happened to him more than once. "And your reaction? You immediately thought that Sideswipe was playing us, setting us up for a joke."

"It wouldn't be the first time." Strongarm crossed her arms.

"Would have been the first time when chasing down a Decepticon signal." Bumblebee immediately retorted. "Some people are able to "switch modes" so to speak, and I'm not talking about using their t-cog. Sideswipe may act carefree and prank others during downtime, but as I said before, he knows when to focus on the job, when to focus on us.

"Strongarm." Bumblebee looked at her in a silent request to continue, which she granted with a single nod. "If it had been the two of you, and Sideswipe would have cried out and then stopped answering coms, would you have gotten to his last known location as fast as we had done? Would you have put on the throttle to reach him?"

Strongarm was about to argue schematics, that they had been hauling Grimlock at the time so even if she was driving at the posted speed limit she would have arrived sooner were she just alone. But she knew what Bumblebee was asking.

"No, no I wouldn't have." Strongarm answered. And she hated herself for admitting it. And as she saw it in this light, she realized that if she had still been convinced that Sideswipe was playing pranks he could have very well perished. Fixit had said that the life support he had been connected to was temporary, and any delays could have meant Sideswipe's death.

"Strongarm. It might not be that smart of him, but Sideswipe trusts you. He has trusted all of us ever since we've realized what trouble this planet is in with the downed. He depends on us, and we depend on him. We all depend on each other." Bumblebee said. "I'll reinstate the previous patrol assignments, but I want to see an improvement in your attitude. What I want is that his trust in you is not misplaced in any way."


End file.
